In the picture book The Words We Share by Jack Wong (Annick Press, 2023), the child narrator, Angie, tells how she is the one that helps her father with basics of communication in their Canadian community because he is not comfortable or fluent in English. Angie finds she can help the entire community, and to her surprise, her father is able to do so as well, even with his lack of English.
The book nicely captures the difficult reality of life for a non-English speaker in our modern-day society. I loved Angie’s support for him and how his own language abilities helped Angie in a difficult situation. The illustrations appear to be digitally created, with pencil outlines, and many pages feature Cantonese text. The entire book presents as a timely and clear
In the author’s note to the picture book, the author says that in working with his Cantonese-speaking mother, they decided that the translation for the title of this book would be The Heart in a Different Language, and I truly love that title to capture the essence of this sweet book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance review copy of this book provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
